so we meet again for the first time : Banshee Picture

Real name Stephanie V, she 'grew up' in a world containing far more supernatural elements than our own. She starts life traveling with a death-themed music group in their van while they used her as a banshee mascot for their shows. They found her as a little girl by the side of the road, and after assuming supernatural origin, kept her with them.

These people just barely existed and couldn't even be seen by people who hadn't heard their music, and it turned out Banshee was in the same boat. Unfortunately, since they could only see each other for most of their lives, they'd already developed intense and twisted personal relationships within their group of five, and a little girl was seen as a novel new toy, not an addition to the crew. They let her perform with them to help her be seen, but she certainly wasn't nurtured or cared for in any meaningful fashion.

They fed her a steady diet of mythology, paranormal investigation magazines, candy, and reverence for the lead-singer who had claimed he'd been to Hell. She was very fond of the lead-singer and his keyboardist boyfriend, and lived with them for the majority of her very short childhood. Lead-singer began calling her Banshee as a reference to her role in the band regardless of whether she was in costume, and her fondness for him made her decide to go by Banshee permanently. She also enjoyed the idea that her wailing had the power to kill, even if it didn't.

She learned a lot of music living with them, and quite a lot about the supernatural universe they lived in. While mentally not terribly stable, lead-singer man turned out to have actually been telling the truth about visiting Hell and knowing the Anti-Christ. Banshee watched him and keyboardist man argue often, and developed a sort of warped sense of what people do to indicate love. Keyboardist was very fond of Banshee, but lead-singer not so much. This led to Banshee being shuffled off to live with guitarist man a few times, where she picked up his interest in foreign languages. When she was shuffled off to live with the drummer and her friend – who both worked to come up with costuming ideas for the band - Banshee picked up her love of art and violence.

Through all this shuffling, she fought with issues of her lack of actual personal relationships. Due to the general neglect by everyone but keyboardist-man, he became alternately her father figure or romantic interest, depending on what she thought she needed more at the time. All the mythology she'd ingested made her see no conflict between these two positions. Lead-singer became aware of it and found hilariously disturbing, but it legitimately concerned keyboardist-man and drummer-woman.

Eventually, Banshee began growing at a alarming rate – appearing to age several years in a single evening, losing all her baby teeth over night and waking up covered in spit and blood, actually feeling her bones grow. Lead-singer man discovered it had something to do with his own mental state and a possessed woman stalking him, and experimented with what would make Banshee grow for his own benefit. Keyboardist-man not only let him, but prevented Banshee from putting a stop to it. She indeed grew, and with her now-adult body and betrayed by the people she adored, she lashed out and became violent. When she pushed lead-singer man down the stairs and stomped on his arm until it broke, keyboardist-man kicked her out and sent to the only other person he knew who wasn't part of the band : the Anti-Christ.

Banshee spent a few days living with the man in charge of Hell and finding out that she was only a poorly constructed and even more poorly timed attempt to replicate lead-singer man when he died. Her job as this man's replacement was going to be to un-possess the woman stalking him, but when she attempted to do it, lead-singer man did it himself. He had at that point stolen her entire purpose for being on top of her childhood and trust in other people.

The people who made Banshee came to collect her as a 'superfluous person' at her last show with the band and she went with them, only to begin physically seeing music and the hands of deities in the form of abstract colors. It's in this state that she turns around and opts to be in the world, breaking out of a kind of 'Heaven' the same way the man she was made to replace broke out of Hell. She is aware that she is likely to be strange and wrong and unwanted and have to fight in whatever world she ends up in, but she has the music and the colors, and that's all she has that hasn't fucked her up during the course of her life.

~ As a result of this background:

-does not trust people-sings quite well and likes to perform-imagines love as something that is dangerous and treats anyone who speaks well of it as highly suspect-spends a lot of time in her own head-her connection to supernatural forces give her occasional flashes of 'just knowing', premonition, or - on bad days - blackouts-is angry, often, about quite a lot-has very little conception of how other people operate-knows of a lot of stories, facts, and histories, but not a lot of 'normal' social cues-has very little sense of modesty or wearing clothing appropriate to a given situation. She just makes it up as she goes along

Random details:

Most often wears her hair the way it is here - a long strip of green in the center of her head. Does it up tons of other ways, but this is her default.

Tattoo of stitches on her arm is a sort of tribute to the keyboardist man she lived with, who was dressed as a stitched together zombie man for their shows.

The white star on her face is a left over from her time in the band as well - all members had a star in their own color. It's not a tattoo, just drawn on, but she is very rarely without it, and it's almost always drawn in the same place.

She doesn't shave her legs or armpits.

Is most likely asexual and aromantic, but she's really too young and fucked up to know.

Doesn't usually wear a top (when weather permits), just some bindings to keep her already small breasts even smaller. She isn't sure if her issues with them stem from gender identity or anger at them having come about forcefully and quickly.

She's also not usually wearing pants, despite this image. She has lots of skirts, leggings and scary tights with varying degrees of matching and coverage.====

So the person I am drawing is the person who went through all that. She's sort of in between this and the other stuff I have planned for her, so this is the Banshee who will go on to further written adventures. She's not likely to tell many people she meets, if anyone, about all this, but this is the foundation of what she is. All the blood and gore is a much her response to her situation as mine to my own.

I apologize for the length. This is actually the shortest of my attempts to do this.

Banshee is my character, if this were somehow not obvious. Title from a line in 'Slayers' that my brother and I quote far more often than you would think possible. It seemed appropriate.